"The Robert M. Beren Academy, an Orthodox Jewish day school in Houston, won its regional championship to advance to the boys basketball state semifinals this weekend in Dallas. But the team will not make the trip.

Beren Academy's basketball team had hoped to travel to Dallas early and play its semifinal game before sundown on Friday.
The Beren Academy players observe the Sabbath and do not play from sundown on Fridays to sundown on Saturdays. Their semifinal game is scheduled for 9 p.m. Friday."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/sports...inals.html

It looks like the NYT link requires a subscription now.

Here's another link:

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,...70,00.html

You would think they could modify the schedule to accommodate this.

They certainly should. Or at least the other coach should offer (even if it means playing at another venue in Austin.)

Unbelievable - unconscionable - that a league of PAROCHIAL SCHOOLS would have such an insensitive stance. Discouraging that the opposing coach would not be more proactive in resolving this.
Maybe Beren should get the hell out of TAPPS. I suspect that in the other Texas private school league (Southwest Preparatory Conference) the outcome would hve been different

(02-28-2012 07:12 PM)texd Wrote:  They certainly should. Or at least the other coach should offer (even if it means playing at another venue in Austin.)

I heard the Beren coach interviewed yesterday. He said the opposing coach was perfectly willing to reschedule the game.

TAAPS relented - they get to play.

Whoops.
It looks like three students took them to court and got an injunction. TAAPS doesn't seem particularly happy about it.
http://espn.go.com/dallas/story/_/id/763...order-play

(03-01-2012 05:35 PM)jh Wrote:  TAAPS relented - they get to play.

Whoops.
It looks like three students took them to court and got an injunction. TAAPS doesn't seem particularly happy about it.
http://espn.go.com/dallas/story/_/id/763...order-play

ESPN Wrote:Unlike many people, TAPPS does follow the law, and we will comply," Burleson said, according to the Houston Chronicle.

What's he getting at?

(03-01-2012 07:06 PM)Brookes Owl Wrote:  

ESPN Wrote:Unlike many people, TAPPS does follow the law, and we will comply," Burleson said, according to the Houston Chronicle.

What's he getting at?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/01/sports....html?_r=1

Quote:The organization’s statement also cited a rule that stipulates that a team, upon qualifying for the playoffs, must notify Tapps if it will not participate in all playoff games in which it qualifies and must remove itself from the playoffs.

“When Beren Academy qualified for the playoffs this year, they did not remove themselves from the playoffs, as described in Section 138.C.3.e, but instead played and won their bi-district, area and regional games,” the statement said.

Edd Burleson, the director of Tapps, said Monday that schedule changes in the past have created problems for other schools. “If we solve one problem, we create another problem,” he said.

Three of the other schools that would be directly affected by a schedule change have agreed to reschedule, said Samantha Steinberg, director of admissions and marketing at Beren Academy. She added that Beren Academy agreed to pick up costs related to changing the time of the game.

I'm not really sure. This is the best I could come up with.

There is that reference that jh mentions. I also saw a note in another article earlier noting that when Beren applied and was accepted, they were supposedly notified that some games could fall on days when religious guidance says they shouldn't play, and the games must go on.

However, I think their position was weakened a bit by the blanket exception they already give for no Sunday games at all, in any sport, as a nod to the Christian tradition. They've already gone out of their way to not cause problems for some (most) members, based on their religious traditions.

And apparently they rescheduled a soccer game last year for a Seventh Day Adventist school.
It's true that Beren should have foreseen that games might fall on the Sabbath. But so should have TAPPS.